Death Before Wicket: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 10 (20 page)

‘No, his father nagged him all the time,’ agreed Harcourt. ‘Joss was always sure that his father despised him, but he looks pretty overcome now.’

‘What happened to Joss’ mother?’ asked Phryne, identifying an absence at Joss’ bedside.

‘She’s dead,’ said Harcourt. ‘Died when he was a little boy. It’s a sad story.’

‘Well,’ said Phryne, standing up and brushing off her skirt. ‘Entrancing as it is to lie on the grass with you, gentlemen, I must be getting on. The afternoon’s wearing away. What are your plans for the moment?’

‘We’re going back to the infirmary,’ said Harcourt, a little surprised that she should need to ask. ‘To sit with Joss.’

‘Indeed,’ agreed Clarence, perhaps a shade reluctantly.

‘Then I will bid you farewell,’ said Phryne, and did so.

It was a puzzle, she thought as she walked through the gardens. Why kill Joss—or Harcourt? To cover up something they knew, to remove them from the scene, to prevent them from telling—what? What did these two harmless young men know? Could be anything. And the field was wide open in relation to the burglary. All of the boys had been out of touch with each other on Saturday night, which was when Phryne suspected the burglary had taken place for no reason other than intuition. Most of the academic staff had been on or near the premises as well, though she excepted Kirkpatrick. The Wee Frees were of such rigid rectitude that he would literally have rather been burned at the stake than have taken part in a magical ritual, and magic was at the heart of the burglary.

And what about Ayers? That blackmailer had him firmly in his or her grip. Ayers had impressed Phryne. Ordinary violence would not work on him. It needed a combination of magic and terror to keep him silent. He said he did not know where the papyrus was, and she believed him. Equally he desperately desired to make a great find, and Khufu’s tomb would certainly be that. Bretherton had been helping him, did not appear susceptible to ordinary blackmail, and had kept his word to Ayers with commendable, if inconvenient, probity.

Where was the elusive Brazell? He had an excellent motive for suppressing that papyrus. He wanted the archaeology money spent in Australia, not overseas. He knew that the notes on the papyrus, once the inherent possibilities were carefully explained to the Dean, would ensure that Ayers was funded and Brazell was not.

So. Brazell had an excellent reason for stealing the papyrus and suppressing it, if not forever. All he really needed to do was to mislay it until after the Dean had made his decision. Then Ayers would have to wait a year for funds. Further study of the strange, miscellaneous notes might reveal that they were useless, there being, as Bretherton said, a lot of avenues of sphinxes in Egypt. Ayers needed the papyrus now, before long study could ruin the first fine careless rapture of discovery. Had Brazell stolen it?

Interesting but hardly evidence, Phryne thought. If he had stolen it, what had he done with the other things, and who had planted those examination papers in Harcourt’s desk? Her memory of Brazell was clear, if brief. Bright eyes and a charming manner. But that could cloak all sorts of things. Handsome is was certainly not as handsome does in Sydney in 1928.

What, then, was she to make of Joss Hart’s fading whisper, ‘Stop Dad. Forgive me’? Forgive him for what? The burglary? Why would Joss steal the papyrus? Which brought Phryne to consider Marrin and Madame. She did not think that Marrin would pause for more than half a second if he saw a chance to rob the safe and cast the blame on Harcourt, who had laughed at him. The problem was access. Marrin could not just walk into the university, he did not have keys to the various doors, and any porter who met a man with a shaven head and teeth like a crocodile wandering around the main building would have screamed police—fire—murder at first sight, even if he had then run like blazes.

And the papyrus was not in Marrin’s possession, or he would not have tried to buy it from Professor Bretherton, a fact confirmed by Ayers. Madame had seduced Bretherton—in Phryne’s experience men were fatally easy to seduce—but that had not gained anyone anything. Marrin had told on Bretherton and Bretherton had confessed all and his wife had forgiven him.

Phryne realised that she was out in George Street West and was wandering towards the city. Walking suited her humour, so instead of waiting for a bus she kept on. The rain of the previous night had washed the pavements clean and the air was sparkling with life. Even the sad trees in tubs outside depressed Glebe houses appeared refreshingly green.

As she approached the corner of a long street, a big car drew up beside her. Phryne stopped. An attack? A woman in a Fuji dress of the startling pink called ‘baby’s bottom’ leapt out and called, ‘Miss Fisher? Are you Miss Fisher?’

‘And if I am?’ asked Phryne, keeping her back to a rusty iron fence.

‘Oh, please.’ The woman came closer and Phryne saw that her cheeks were streaked with tears, cracking her maquillage. ‘Miss Fisher, is it?’

‘Yes,’ said Phryne, still unsure.

‘Let me talk to you,’ pleaded the woman. ‘It’s about my son. My little boy. Hart, you know. Joss Hart.’

It was a tea-shop which mainly served labourers from the bridge and Phryne bought two cups of tea like tar, served in thick cracked cups. There were three tables with splintery wooden benches. The one window wept grease. Phryne gave up hope for her stockings and sat down next to the bright pink shimmering dress and the desperate face under the curled blonde hair. Mrs Hart dabbed at her eyes.

‘I haven’t seen him since I ran away,’ she whispered. ‘His father was rough. Big bruiser of a man and he took it out on me, but not on Joss. Never on Joss. He loved Joss. So I left Joss when I ran, when he put me out on the street in my nightgown for the last time. And where could I go but on the game? Never trained for anything. Not a penny in my pocket. Nowhere to go. Tillie took me in. Looked after me. When the bruises healed I started to work for her.’

‘How long ago?’ asked Phryne.

‘Ten years. I used to send little presents to Joss, letters, too. But they always came back unopened. His father was very angry with me. Still is, I expect. No one ever defied him before. But I did,’ said Mrs Hart with a trace of pride. ‘And, you know? Life as a tart is a good deal easier than life with Vivian Hart. Silly name. A girl’s name, but I never told him so. I didn’t want him to call the boy Jocelyn because I thought it would be difficult for him at school, and it was, but he did it anyway. Never listened to me,’ she sighed. ‘But every working girl’s got a story,’ she said. ‘I went looking for you at the University but they said you’d left. Professor Bretherton told me, he’s one of my regulars. Nice bloke. Real gentleman. Told me Joss was injured and told me you could smuggle me in somehow if anyone could. Then I saw you in the street and I thought it must be you. Green eyes are rare with black hair.’

‘Why don’t you go and see Joss?’ asked Phryne. ‘The infirmary would let you in, you’re his mother.’

‘I can’t, Viv’s there and he told me he’d kill me if he saw me again. He means it. Came looking for me several times. The last time he took on Sharkbait Kennedy and got a real larruping. Tillie looks after the girls.’

‘Until they are of no further use,’ said Phryne. ‘I have no moral objections to your profession, Mrs Hart, but in another few years, perhaps, you will run out of customers, and then…’

The shrewd, blotched, painted face turned up to Phryne’s. ‘Call me Dolly, do. Same thing with athletes and movie actresses: they’re out when they get older. By the time I retire I’ll have saved enough for a nice little house and an annuity. It’s a profession like any other,’ said Dolly Hart, and Phryne began to like her. ‘And I never had to do anything for it which Viv Hart didn’t do to me, against my will.’

‘What do you want with me?’ asked Phryne.

‘Tell me about Joss.’ Mrs Hart began to cry again. ‘What happened to him?’

‘He was bitten by a snake,’ said Phryne. ‘He is very ill. I really think you ought to see him.’

‘I durstn’t,’ said Mrs Hart, sobbing into her handkerchief.

‘You durst,’ said Phryne gently. ‘Come back with me and we’ll get you some clothes and we can carry this off. I’d disguise you as a nurse but I can’t see Florence Nightingale of the infirmary co-operating. You look about my companion’s size,’ she added. ‘And if you can tell her what happened to her sister Joan…’

‘Joan? Joanie Williams? Do you really think you can do this, Miss Fisher?’

‘Yes,’ said Phryne.

‘Tillie sent me out with a message to deliver, and gave me leave to be away if I could get in to see Joss. She trusts me not to run away. I won’t, reason being, I don’t have anywhere to run and in any case…’

‘She was good to you and you’re saving up for your retirement,’ concluded Phryne. ‘Is the car still there?’

‘Yes, Sharkbait’s waiting for us.’

‘He isn’t going to be pleased to see me again,’ said Phryne.

‘Of course, you’re the “little light sheila” who slipped out of his headlock,’ chuckled Dolly Hart. ‘No one’s ever done that to him before. I think he likes you. Come on.’ She clapped down her cup and escorted Phryne to the Bentley.

The back door opened and Phryne got in. Dolly said, ‘Hotel Australia’ to Bluey ‘Sharkbait’ Kennedy, who smiled at Miss Fisher in a manner which suggested that he was unaccustomed to the exercise. She smiled cautiously back.

‘You have to understand that Tillie’s the Queen of Vice in Sydney,’ Mrs Hart began, evidently in the throes of an explanation. ‘She’s got the game stitched up and no one dares to cross her. Just lately she’s been worried that her girls are too rough. Like, gentlemen who want a pretty girl on their arm for a night at the theatre and the ballet and all that don’t want some slut from Darlo who’s never bathed in her life and who thinks a pie and gravy is haute cuisine. Likewise he don’t want a tart who looks like a tart—gentlemen are peculiar like that. They want some girl who’s never heard the word “sin” and will do any filthy act he has a yen for, but he wants her to act like a lady the rest of the time and not grope the bellboy or throw up in the lift. Follow?’

‘Certainly,’ said Phryne. Mrs Hart still retained most of her genteel vocabulary, though it was overlaid with rougher street idioms.

‘So there was this woman, see, one of Tillie’s look-see men saw her standing on the street corner, saw her take several men into an alley. Tillie don’t like amateurs. She says they ruin the trade. Sharkbait there put the frighteners on her and she ran away, but the dog said he saw her back in the same place a couple of nights later, playing the same game, and they took her to see Tillie. Tillie says to her, it’s dangerous out on the street, you never know who’s out there, you could get hurt, even killed, why not work in a house where you’re safe? Implying, you see, that even if she had been safe before she wasn’t going to be safe now. Drive around, Bluey. I got to finish this story before we get where we’re going.’

Bluey grinned and swung the car around to circle Hyde Park.

‘So Miss Williams, it was, she says that she never wanted to be a tart and she was married with children, and they were desperate, about to be put out on the street and her husband’s business failing and her children hungry. Well, Tillie’s heard that story before, we all have a story, but she believed Joanie because she was telling the truth. Tillie hardly ever gets people wrong. That’s one reason why I stay with her.’

Phryne thought about Joan Williams, so destitute that she serviced strangers in alleys. That was by any measure desperation indeed, and she could also imagine how disgusted the fastidious, refined girl whom Dot described would have been at being reduced to such an extremity. Tillie’s establishments, however dire, would have to be an improvement.

‘So Tillie heard Joan’s voice and looked at her clothes and asked her if she could dance, and did she know all about table manners and that, and Joanie said she did, and proved it—you’d never think that anyone could dance with Sharkbait there, would you? But Joanie managed it.’

‘She’s a bonzer dancer,’ commented Sharkbait. ‘Only tart I’ve ever known who’d dance with me.’ He grinned into the rear-view mirror. Phryne examined her imagination. It boggled. Mrs Hart continued, speaking quickly.

‘So Tillie said she was far too soft-hearted to be a tart and she’d better take a job teaching all the girls to dress and how to act like ladies, and Joan accepted it. Tillie’s right. Joanie wouldn’t make a good tart. She hated it, really hated it, and men can tell. Well, some men can tell. And some of them care. They’re buying a girl who can seem to want them. Joan’s been really nice to have around. The girls like her too, only the roughest ones complain about too much washing and not laughing too loud and they never last too long, anyway. Get on the gin and that’s the end of them. But Joanie don’t drink. And she can dance like a dream. Until she came I hadn’t danced for years. Tillie’s even planning to have dance parties.’

This was much better news than Phryne had been expecting. Leaving aside the unfortunate beginning to the story, which Phryne was intending to suppress completely, Joan had not actually committed any discoverable sins for which her family might have to forgive her. Dot would be very relieved.

‘But where is she?’ asked Phryne. ‘I’ve been looking for her, and possibly Darlo Annie, for days and no one’s seen them.’

Mrs Hart’s plump hand closed on Phryne’s wrist.

‘I can see how you confused ‘em,’ she whispered. ‘Darlo Annie’s the same build as Joanie, the same blonde hair and blue eyes. You been asking at Theo’s and those places, and they never look at a girl well, only see the colouring and maybe the body. A girl’s not a person to Theo’s, just a collection of arms and legs. I can see how they got it wrong, they might not have been trying to mislead you. But Darlo Annie’s dead, took laudanum last week after her steady chap went and got married. She thought he was her ticket out, did Annie, poor girl. That’s why Tillie didn’t want you looking into her death, it was natural but Tillie don’t want to attract police attention, because there was a police raid on Palmer Street on Saturday night last, and Joanie’s…’